Pub Date : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.4337/9781800881099.00013
Paul Manly, J. Bartley, Chlöe Swarbrick
For this edition on environmental activism and the law, we examined how contemporary green political parties construe their role and relevance when many environmentalists including the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement are bypassing parliamentary processes by taking to the streets as well as by proposing alternate forms of political engagement such as convening national citizens’ assemblies. This report features interviews conducted in early 2020 with Paul Manly (MP, House of Commons, Green Party of Canada); Chlöe Swarbrick (MP, New Zealand Parliament, Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand); and Jonathan Bartley (Co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, and councillor on Lambeth Council, London). Each interviewee responded to the same questions, which are detailed below. The interviews were conducted by Emma Thomas, XR Vancouver (interviewed Paul Manly); Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, FRGS, Associate Professor in Law, University of Waikato, and Deputy Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law (interviewed Chlöe Swarbrick); and Benjamin J Richardson, Professor of Environmental Law, University of Tasmania (interviewed Jonathan Bartley).
{"title":"Green parties and environmental activism","authors":"Paul Manly, J. Bartley, Chlöe Swarbrick","doi":"10.4337/9781800881099.00013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800881099.00013","url":null,"abstract":"For this edition on environmental activism and the law, we examined how contemporary green political parties construe their role and relevance when many environmentalists including the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement are bypassing parliamentary processes by taking to the streets as well as by proposing alternate forms of political engagement such as convening national citizens’ assemblies. This report features interviews conducted in early 2020 with Paul Manly (MP, House of Commons, Green Party of Canada); Chlöe Swarbrick (MP, New Zealand Parliament, Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand); and Jonathan Bartley (Co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, and councillor on Lambeth Council, London). Each interviewee responded to the same questions, which are detailed below. The interviews were conducted by Emma Thomas, XR Vancouver (interviewed Paul Manly); Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, FRGS, Associate Professor in Law, University of Waikato, and Deputy Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law (interviewed Chlöe Swarbrick); and Benjamin J Richardson, Professor of Environmental Law, University of Tasmania (interviewed Jonathan Bartley).","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43209198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal law and animal law studies both suffer from shortcomings in their underlying ethics. For the most part, (global) animal law draws from utilitarian welfarism and rights-based approaches to animals. Animal law academics have, thus far, paid little attention to more critical animal ethical studies, although these hold great potential for improving the justness and effectiveness of animal law. This article proposes delineating a ‘second wave of animal ethics’ consisting of a number of critical ethical lenses that are capable of addressing four key shortcomings in ‘first wave animal ethics’. This article draws particularly on feminist, posthumanist and earth jurisprudence studies to draw out four key lessons. First, the need to stop assuming that animals only deserve moral and legal consideration if they are like humans, and instead to accept, celebrate, reward and legally protect difference. Second, the need to stop assuming that moral and legal considerations should extend to animals and no further. Third, the need to stop over-relying on liberal concepts like rights and start engaging with (intersectionally) marginalized communities to theorize viable alternative paradigms that might work better for animals. Fourth, the need to stop assuming that animal ethics need to be the same everywhere. In making this argument, this article intends to inspire further research on ‘second wave animal ethics’ ideas amongst animal law scholars.
{"title":"Second wave animal ethics and (global) animal law: a view from the margins","authors":"Iyan Offor","doi":"10.4337/JHRE.2020.02.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/JHRE.2020.02.06","url":null,"abstract":"Animal law and animal law studies both suffer from shortcomings in their underlying ethics. For the most part, (global) animal law draws from utilitarian welfarism and rights-based approaches to animals. Animal law academics have, thus far, paid little attention to more critical animal ethical studies, although these hold great potential for improving the justness and effectiveness of animal law. This article proposes delineating a ‘second wave of animal ethics’ consisting of a number of critical ethical lenses that are capable of addressing four key shortcomings in ‘first wave animal ethics’. This article draws particularly on feminist, posthumanist and earth jurisprudence studies to draw out four key lessons. First, the need to stop assuming that animals only deserve moral and legal consideration if they are like humans, and instead to accept, celebrate, reward and legally protect difference. Second, the need to stop assuming that moral and legal considerations should extend to animals and no further. Third, the need to stop over-relying on liberal concepts like rights and start engaging with (intersectionally) marginalized communities to theorize viable alternative paradigms that might work better for animals. Fourth, the need to stop assuming that animal ethics need to be the same everywhere. In making this argument, this article intends to inspire further research on ‘second wave animal ethics’ ideas amongst animal law scholars.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"268-296"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48262994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers objections to current litigation strategies of the US-based Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), which seek to extend legal personhood and liberty rights to nonhuman animals who possess ‘practical autonomy’. By tying personhood to intellectual abilities, so the objections go, such strategies endanger the present legal standing of humans with profound cognitive impairments. This article will argue that such cause for concern is largely misplaced for two reasons. First, the NhRP argue that practical autonomy is only a sufficient condition for personhood, not a necessary one. Second, drawing on theoretical and empirical literature, the article will argue that speciesism itself is a multiplier of oppressive theories, attitudes, beliefs and practices that negatively affect marginalized humans, including humans with cognitive impairments. The NhRP's attempts to reduce speciesism in the legal domain are thus hypothesized as being part of the solution to discrimination against marginalized humans, not as part of the problem.
{"title":"Animal rights, legal personhood and cognitive capacity: addressing ‘levelling-down’ concerns","authors":"J. Wills","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.03","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers objections to current litigation strategies of the US-based Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), which seek to extend legal personhood and liberty rights to nonhuman animals who possess ‘practical autonomy’. By tying personhood to intellectual abilities, so the objections go, such strategies endanger the present legal standing of humans with profound cognitive impairments. This article will argue that such cause for concern is largely misplaced for two reasons. First, the NhRP argue that practical autonomy is only a sufficient condition for personhood, not a necessary one. Second, drawing on theoretical and empirical literature, the article will argue that speciesism itself is a multiplier of oppressive theories, attitudes, beliefs and practices that negatively affect marginalized humans, including humans with cognitive impairments. The NhRP's attempts to reduce speciesism in the legal domain are thus hypothesized as being part of the solution to discrimination against marginalized humans, not as part of the problem.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"199-223"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45353166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Louis J Kotzé (ed), Environmental Law and Governance for the Anthropocene (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2017) 379 pp.","authors":"Melanie Murcott","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.09","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"324-329"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.09","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47189081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A being to which intentional states – such as desires or preferences – may be ascribed is a being capable of having (actual) interests, whereas to be the subject of interests of some kind is both a necessary and sufficient condition to be the holder of individual rights. After clarifying the sense in which, according to the ‘interest-theory’, the notion of a rights-subject specifies a distinctive normative status, this article will highlight the importance of distinguishing between subjectivity-dependent interests capable of being attributed to conscious beings, on the one hand, and biologically structured needs of conscious and nonconscious living beings, on the other. This distinction allows one to see that the moral requirement of recognizing legal rights for (individual) animals ought not to be conflated with biocentric demands of ecological justice. However, the argument thus delineated will not, without more, answer the crucial question of which specific legal rights ought to be ascribed to nonhuman animals. The article closes with an exploration of the need for holding onto the distinction between rights-subjecthood and personhood by analyzing some implications of Tooley's ‘particular-interest principle’.
{"title":"Animalhood, interests, and rights*","authors":"Juan Pablo Mañalich R.","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.01","url":null,"abstract":"A being to which intentional states – such as desires or preferences – may be ascribed is a being capable of having (actual) interests, whereas to be the subject of interests of some kind is both a necessary and sufficient condition to be the holder of individual rights. After clarifying the sense in which, according to the ‘interest-theory’, the notion of a rights-subject specifies a distinctive normative status, this article will highlight the importance of distinguishing between subjectivity-dependent interests capable of being attributed to conscious beings, on the one hand, and biologically structured needs of conscious and nonconscious living beings, on the other. This distinction allows one to see that the moral requirement of recognizing legal rights for (individual) animals ought not to be conflated with biocentric demands of ecological justice. However, the argument thus delineated will not, without more, answer the crucial question of which specific legal rights ought to be ascribed to nonhuman animals. The article closes with an exploration of the need for holding onto the distinction between rights-subjecthood and personhood by analyzing some implications of Tooley's ‘particular-interest principle’.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"156-172"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.01","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47417607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Whereas regulation relating to minimum standards of animal welfare is increasingly uncontroversial in contemporary popular discourse, the same cannot be said of viewing animals as legal persons possessing legally enforceable rights in and of themselves. The purpose of this article will be to explore this reticence and ask whether the continued anthropocentricity of legally enforceable rights is compatible with the very concept of law itself. The article will draw heavily on the moral writing of Alan Gewirth, engaging with his justification for why human beings themselves can make philosophically valid claims to be rightsholders. Taking Gewirthian ethical rationalism as providing a universally applicable hypothetical imperative which binds all agents to comply with its requirements, the article will move on to discuss the implications of the theory on our understanding of legal normativity. If we accept that the purpose of law is to guide action, and that legal normativity therefore operates at the level of practical rationality, the Gewirthian project necessarily limits the content of law to those norms which are compliant with the moral underpinning of all normative reasons for action. A necessary connection between law and morality can therefore be established which requires equal respect for all agents. By creating this necessary connection, it is possible to move beyond an anthropocentric conception of legal normativity to one that necessarily must instead respect the basic rights possessed by all agents – regardless of species. Legal rights for animals that are capable of acting within Gewirth's conception of agency must therefore be seen not to be a mere aspiration for a well-meaning society, but a logical necessity within any legal system.
{"title":"Legal rights for animals: aspiration or logical necessity?","authors":"J. Jowitt","doi":"10.4337/JHRE.2020.02.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/JHRE.2020.02.02","url":null,"abstract":"Whereas regulation relating to minimum standards of animal welfare is increasingly uncontroversial in contemporary popular discourse, the same cannot be said of viewing animals as legal persons possessing legally enforceable rights in and of themselves. The purpose of this article will be to explore this reticence and ask whether the continued anthropocentricity of legally enforceable rights is compatible with the very concept of law itself. The article will draw heavily on the moral writing of Alan Gewirth, engaging with his justification for why human beings themselves can make philosophically valid claims to be rightsholders. Taking Gewirthian ethical rationalism as providing a universally applicable hypothetical imperative which binds all agents to comply with its requirements, the article will move on to discuss the implications of the theory on our understanding of legal normativity. If we accept that the purpose of law is to guide action, and that legal normativity therefore operates at the level of practical rationality, the Gewirthian project necessarily limits the content of law to those norms which are compliant with the moral underpinning of all normative reasons for action. A necessary connection between law and morality can therefore be established which requires equal respect for all agents. By creating this necessary connection, it is possible to move beyond an anthropocentric conception of legal normativity to one that necessarily must instead respect the basic rights possessed by all agents – regardless of species. Legal rights for animals that are capable of acting within Gewirth's conception of agency must therefore be seen not to be a mere aspiration for a well-meaning society, but a logical necessity within any legal system.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"173-198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43389229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Animal rights: interconnections with human rights and the environment","authors":"Tom Sparks, Visa A. J. Kurki, Saskia Stucki","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.00","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.00","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"149-155"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.00","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48931321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article aims to explore potential friction points that may arise with the emergence of new natural non-human rights holders (for instance, individual animals, rivers, Pacha Mama and so on). Specifically, the article relies on the case of invasive alien species (IAS) to highlight that animal rights can collide with rights of the environment. Indeed, IAS represent a serious environmental threat and are, as such, at the centre of numerous global, regional and national regulations that favour early eradication as the best course of action. However, in a rights paradigm, this collision amounts to a conflict between the right to life of individuals from IAS and the right to integrity of the threatened ecosystems. This article addresses how such conflicts might be solved by relying on an analogy with the lawful restrictions of human rights. It highlights how, even in a rights paradigm, eradicating individuals from IAS could remain legal, albeit more strictly controlled. It also points to the inevitable questions of representation that such situations entail. As the rights of natural non-humans clash, the issue becomes, in turn, a discussion among humans. This discussion requires legal frameworks and principles to be legitimate and accountable. This article seeks to describe some of these principles by relying on an analysis of current practices in different fields. In sum, the article argues that it is not inherently problematic to solve conflicts between natural non-human rights. However, the human discussion to solve this conflict has to be based on epistemic plurality to gain in legitimacy.
{"title":"The conceptual challenges of invasive alien species to non-human rights","authors":"Guillaume Futhazar","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.04","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to explore potential friction points that may arise with the emergence of new natural non-human rights holders (for instance, individual animals, rivers, Pacha Mama and so on). Specifically, the article relies on the case of invasive alien species (IAS) to highlight that animal rights can collide with rights of the environment. Indeed, IAS represent a serious environmental threat and are, as such, at the centre of numerous global, regional and national regulations that favour early eradication as the best course of action. However, in a rights paradigm, this collision amounts to a conflict between the right to life of individuals from IAS and the right to integrity of the threatened ecosystems. This article addresses how such conflicts might be solved by relying on an analogy with the lawful restrictions of human rights. It highlights how, even in a rights paradigm, eradicating individuals from IAS could remain legal, albeit more strictly controlled. It also points to the inevitable questions of representation that such situations entail. As the rights of natural non-humans clash, the issue becomes, in turn, a discussion among humans. This discussion requires legal frameworks and principles to be legitimate and accountable. This article seeks to describe some of these principles by relying on an analysis of current practices in different fields. In sum, the article argues that it is not inherently problematic to solve conflicts between natural non-human rights. However, the human discussion to solve this conflict has to be based on epistemic plurality to gain in legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"224-243"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46077347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Duncan Kelly, Politics and the Anthropocene (Polity, London 2019) 152 pp.","authors":"D. Matthews","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.08","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":"11 1","pages":"320-323"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45992895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Legal animal rights may, in the short term, offer an efficient means to improve the living conditions of animals and how they are treated by human societies. This article argues that this shift to adopt an animal rights framing of the human-animal interaction might also risk producing certain counterproductive effects. It suggests that there is a need for a broader reassessment of the relationships between the human and animal worlds. This article posits that the adoption of legal animal rights as a workable legal solution for the better protection of animals has been increasingly accepted because rights frameworks rely upon a core premise of Western jurisprudence, namely legal subjectivism and the epistemological and axiological assumptions it conveys. The article argues that such an individualistic and dualist approach to legal animal rights will ultimately reveal itself to be insufficient and unable to capture animals as members of concrete social and environmental entanglements. Rather, a true legal revolution is required, which would evoke an ecological understanding of law itself.
{"title":"Is there a need for a new, an ecological, understanding of legal animal rights?","authors":"Brian Favre","doi":"10.4337/jhre.2020.02.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.07","url":null,"abstract":"Legal animal rights may, in the short term, offer an efficient means to improve the living conditions of animals and how they are treated by human societies. This article argues that this shift to adopt an animal rights framing of the human-animal interaction might also risk producing certain counterproductive effects. It suggests that there is a need for a broader reassessment of the relationships between the human and animal worlds. This article posits that the adoption of legal animal rights as a workable legal solution for the better protection of animals has been increasingly accepted because rights frameworks rely upon a core premise of Western jurisprudence, namely legal subjectivism and the epistemological and axiological assumptions it conveys. The article argues that such an individualistic and dualist approach to legal animal rights will ultimately reveal itself to be insufficient and unable to capture animals as members of concrete social and environmental entanglements. Rather, a true legal revolution is required, which would evoke an ecological understanding of law itself.","PeriodicalId":43831,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Human Rights and the Environment","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4337/jhre.2020.02.07","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47372752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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